Pirates are the subject of many a dime novel and boys' stories, but they tend to be portrayed as one-dimensional. Such is the case here. The captain of The Avenger is a Byronic or even a Michael Scottish hero-an impossible monster, compounded of one virtue and a thousand crimes. Marryat drew on his recollections of the time when he was a midshipman with Cochrane in the Impèrieuse, for the figure of the old steersman, who sticks to his post under the fire of the Avenger.
The Three Cutters was written to pad out the novel The Pirate and deals with smuggling. It is a farcical romp, with too many women in a man's world to be credible.
